It’s been an intense and early start to the wildfire season across the province. Chief Fire Information Officer Kevin Skrepnek says Tuesday was an especially bad day for BC in terms of new fires.
“Across the province, we had 20 new fires [on Tuesday]. Thirteen of those were in the Prince George Fire Centre.”
Windy conditions contributed to the blazes but Skrepnek says there is cause for optimism.
“The fire activity we saw…was driven by a very significant weather pattern that came through. We saw winds up to 90km/h and highs, in some cases record-breaking, in the area of 28 degrees,” he says. “Things have become much more seasonal since then.”
The number and intensity of the fires has prompted the province to bring in air support early.
“Due to this increased potential for quickly spreading fires and given the activity we’ve had already, the decision was made by the province to bring our air tanker fleet online early,” says Skrepnek. “We have one air tanker group that’s going to be fire ready as of this afternoon – they’re going to be based out of Fort St. John. A second group is going to be coming active tomorrow in Prince George.”
The third air tanker group will be based in Williams Lake. Air tankers aren’t normally deployed until next week at the earliest.
A piece of good news – Skrepnek says all evacuation orders due to fires have been lifted or changed to alerts. There are currently five areas under evacuation alerts in BC, all of them in the Fort St. John area.
Fort St. John is also close to the largest active fire in the province. The Beatton Road Airport fire is currently estimated at 5500 hectares. Skrepnek stresses that this is just a ballpark figure due to the amount of smoke in the area making surveillance of the fire difficult.
There are 32 active fires in the Prince George Fire Centre.
Due to the dry and volatile conditions, burning restrictions have been introduced. Open burning is now banned throughout the Prince George Fire Centre.
This includes grass and slash fires as well as burning barrels and cages. Sky lanterns and tiki torches also fall under the ban but small campfires of no more than 2 feet by 2 feet are still permitted.
Disobeying the restrictions can land you a $1,150 fine, an administrative penalty of $10,000 or up to $100,000 with a maximum of one year in jail if you are convicted in court.
Further details on the restrictions can be found on the BC Wildfire Service website.
Despite the fierce start to the season, Skepnek says the long-term outlook is still uncertain.
“It still is just too early to tell at this point. There have been some long term indicators that we could be looking at a warmer than normal summer but trying to forecast any sort of rain this far out is impossible,” Skrepnek says. “And the rains that we see between now and the end of June are a really key factor in how the rest of the fire season is going to progress.”
According to Skrepnek, the current budget for this season’s firefighting operations is $63 million dollars, although the BC Wildfire Service has the authority to increase spending as needed. Skrepnek says they do not currently have an estimate of how much of the budget has already been spent.
The bill for last year’s firefighting operations came to $290 million.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
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